IE Holes Not Microsoft's Fault, Says Bill

thparker writes "As part of the Media Center release discussed previously, Bill Gates had an interview with USA Today. Best quote: 'Q: Speaking of security, Internet Explorer has had well-publicized holes... Gates: Understand those are cases where you are downloading third-party software.' Well now we know -- these problems have all been our own fault." Any counterexamples?

Comments

Bad programming model

[John Hansen]

So, pray tell, how is making a horribly insecure third-party application model (DirectX) and then complaining about how people are exploiting it supposed to hold water? YOU ARE THE API DEVELOPER. IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO ANTICIPATE POTENTIAL ABUSES.

Because if I'm reading this right, then that's exactly what Gates is doing. No wonder Microsoft's products are so shitty; they think that security is something that happens to other people.

Re:No thanks

[mibus]

It's just a matter of scale.

A pristine WinXP box will be compromised in 20 minutes (on average).

I'm still waiting for my unfirewalled 'nix box to be rooted ;)

Re:Antivirus is not a thing you "build in"

[plover]

I want to know why Bill Gates thinks it can't be built in.

I'm not talking pure heuristic detection, because a perfect heuristic detector is theoretically impossible. But why can't Microsoft build in a scanner that downloads virus definitions?

Virtually all of the viruses of the last five years or so have been Microsoft viruses. (Boot sector viruses are soo last millenium, and everybody's BIOS already detects those.) Not "PC" viruses, not "MS-DOS" viruses, but specifically "Microsoft Windows" viruses. Since they seem to be at the forefront of providing the virus delivery systems, why do I have to pay someone else (like Symantec) to protect me from them? Why isn't patching these defects included in the purchase price of this obviously defective product?

Re:Easy to assign blame

[plover]

Then you should use Portable Firefox on a flash drive at school. Jack in the thumb drive. Run PortableFirefox. You get to bring your own bookmarks and cookies with you, and leave nothing like log files behind. And 32MB drives are available for about $10.00 (check the clearance bins at places like Micro Center or wherever.)

Sweetest Revenge: Linux Media Centers

[randalx]

Gates: What the consumer wants is pretty clear: a single remote control that lets them navigate photos, music, videos, TV in a very rich way. They want to see that on any screen in the house and then have a great portable device where they can take that stuff wherever they want anytime. The full realization of that dream is still years away, but we've taken a dramatic step in delivering that with Media Center.

I think it'd be great if we could beat Microsoft to the punch by offering all of this and more using Linux and open formats (not WMA Bill!). It seems like there is already a lot of work in the area going on (MythTV, Freevo, Mister House, VLC) but is any of this ready to be easily set up by the average Joe? Is there any work being done to put all the pieces together. Perhaps a modded distribution geared specifically to creating and setting up a Media Center type environment. Not only could a Linux based solution put anything from MS to shame it could also force Movies/TV/Music industries to support open formats if the Linux Media Center becomes the dominant player.

Am I dreaming or can the open source community take the lead here?

Re:No thanks

[Asprin]

For what it's worth, Ubuntu actually disables the root account by default so you have to sudo everything.

(I'm sure other distros do that too, but Ubuntu stands out in my mind because I had to wrestle with it unexpectedly over the weekend.)

Re:No thanks

[skraps]

That is a fringe example and doesn't have any effect on the main thrust of the argument. Making the boot media read-only in an effort to stop security holes is like cutting off your legs so that you won't accidentally stub your toe. You are right that Microsoft will never provide that as an option - because it doesn't make any sense for ordinary use.